Sex has regularly proven to be a polarising issue for the UN Member States, and the 2016 High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS on June 8–10 was no exception. The Political Declaration adopted at the meeting addresses the sexual health needs of young people (15–24 years), including adolescents (11–19 years). 2000 new HIV infections occur among young people every day. HIV is the leading cause of death among adolescents in Africa, and the second-highest cause of death worldwide in this age group. …

What programs delay sexual initiation, improve contraceptive use among sexually active teens, and/or prevent teen pregnancy? Over the years, The National Campaign has produced and disseminated a number of detailed reports and publications designed to answer this question. Here, in shorthand form, is an overview of what is known about carefully evaluated interventions that help delay sex, improve contraceptive use, and/or prevent teen pregnancy.

More than ever, adolescents need help, guidance, and empowerment. This is the main purpose for which the Department of Health invested in the project: “Development of Behavior Change Communication (BCC) Strategy for Adolescent Pregnancy.” This initiative essentially aims to contribute to the promotion of positive and healthy behaviors that enable adolescents to avoid too early and unintended pregnancy. This initiative is an integral part of the Adolescent and Youth Health and Development (AYHD) Program of the Department of Health. …

Scientific research has made major contributions to adolescent health by providing insights into factors that influence it and by defining ways to improve it. However, US adolescent sexual and reproductive health policies-particularly sexuality health education policies and programs-have not benefited from the full scope of scientific understanding. From 1998 to 2009, federal funding for sexuality education focused almost exclusively on ineffective and scientifically inaccurate abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM) programs. …

The goal of this policy is to improve the prevention and management of learner pregnancy in Namibia, with the ultimate aim of decreasing the number of learner pregnancies and increasing the number of learner-parents who complete their education. Education is both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of realising other human rights. In order to meet Vision 2030, it is essential that a policy is put in place to address learner pregnancy that will make a real and sustainable difference in the lives of children and their children. …

We provide experimental evidence on the relationships between education, HIV/AIDS education, risky behavior and early fertility in Kenya. We exploit randomly assigned variation in the cost of schooling and in exposure to the national HIV/AIDS prevention curriculum for a cohort of over 19,000 adolescents in Western Kenya, originally aged 13.5 on average. We collected data on the schooling, marriage, and fertility out-comes of these students over 7 years, and tested them for HIV and Herpes (HSV2) after 7 years. …

This study examined whether formal sex education is associated with sexual health behaviors and outcomes using recent nationally representative survey data. Data used were from 4,691 male and female individuals aged 15–24 years from the 2006–2008 National Survey of Family Growth. Receipt of sex education, regardless of type, was associated with delays in first sex for both genders, as compared with receiving no sex education. …

Best practices for adolescent sex education recommend science-based approaches. However, little is known about the capacity and needs of organizations who implement sex education programs on the local level. The purpose of this research was to describe successes and challenges of community organizations in implementing science-based sex education. Using qualitative methods, we interviewed program directors and educators in 17 state funded adolescent pregnancy prevention/sex education programs as part of a larger mixed methods evaluation. …

Parental communication and support is associated with improved developmental, health and behavioral outcomes in adolescence. This study explores the quality of mother-daughter communication about sexual maturation, abstinence and unintended pregnancy in Korogocho, an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. We use data from 14 focus group discussions (n = 124) and 25 interviews with girls aged 12-17, mothers of teenage girls, and key informant teachers. …

In this paper, Middle East and North of Africa are not presented from demographic dimension, rather from cultural one, where the most dominant religion is is Islam. Consequently, the paper will discuss applicability of sex education approaches from Islamic perspectives but within the Middle East and North of Africa context.

We use a randomized experiment to test whether and what information changes teenagers' sexual behavior in Kenya. Providing information on the relative risk of HIV infection by partner's age led to a 28 percent decrease in teen pregnancy, an objective proxy for the incidence of unprotected sex. Self-reported sexual behavior data suggests substitution away from older (riskier) partners and toward same-age partners. In contrast, the official abstinence-only HIV curriculum had no impact on teen pregnancy. …

In the majority of states, sex education is mandatory or strongly recommended in public schools. Forty-eight states and most of the large school districts across the country support sex education, including about STIs and abstinence. Fewer districts and states make education on pregnancy prevention mandatory. Larger school districts cover a broader range of sex-related topics, especially related to preventing pregnancy, than state curricula. Such districts also provide greater support to instructors through curricula provision, training and other activities, than do states. …

This paper examines the impact of four abstinence-only education programs on adolescent sexual acitivity and risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Based on an experimental designe, the impact analysis uses survey data collected in 2005 and early 2006 from more than 2,000 teens who had been randomly assignes to either à program group that was eligible to participate in one of the four programs or a control group that was not. …